It has become increasingly more common to manufacture incontinence protectors in the form of pant diapers. Such pant diapers include an outer panty having an integral absorbent inner part. Alternatively, an outer panty can be used together with a separate incontinence shield which is temporarily attached inside the outer panty and which, thus, can be changed for a new incontinence shield while retaining the same outer panty. Both kinds of incontinence protectors are manufactured for infants as well as for incontinent adult persons.
The pants concerned here are of the disposable kind, implying that the pant diaper or diaper pant is intended to be discarded after use and not washed or otherwise restored for use. This means that the materials and production methods which are available are those which are cost efficient and which do not result in articles having an exceedingly high price. In particular, it must be possible to perform the different process operations at high speed, which puts certain limitations on the choice of method.
In order to obtain a good fit and to achieve a tight seal in pant diapers and diaper pants, these types of absorbent articles are often manufactured at least partly from elastic materials. For instance, all of the belly-encircling part or only the side panels may be made from elastic nonwoven material. In this manner, a good fit and a certain size adaptation is achieved. The elastic material in the panty itself is usually supplemented with particular elastic members which are arranged around the leg openings and the waist opening of the panty. Such elastic members give a locally higher tightening and ensure that the panties will not slide down. Moreover, the elastic members seal against leakage past the openings in the panty. However, a problem arises when the elastic members are to be attached to a material which is in itself elastic. In order to keep the elastic members in place, adhesive is usually applied to the elastic material, whereafter the elastic elements are laid down on the adhesive. Thereafter, the elastic members are locked in the applied position by laminating a further material layer over the elastic material layer and the elastic members. For cost reasons, it is generally unsuitable to use a further elastic material layer as a locking material. Instead, an ordinary non-elastic material layer is used, such as a nonwoven. This means that the elastic properties in the elastic material layer are strongly reduced and in some instances in fact completely extinguished in the laminated area, which of course is an unwanted result of the lamination.
Consequently, an objective of the present invention is to provide a method for application of elastic members on an elastic web of material, wherein the elastic elements are locked onto the elastic web of material with minimal negative impact on the elastic properties of the elastic web of material.